


Without You

by rose_clover



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Related, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Family Drama, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mentions of Character Death, Plot Twist, Reincarnation, Reunions, Sad, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_clover/pseuds/rose_clover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>long·ing: a strong desire especially for something unattainable; wanting</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Losing Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing too grand here.

He is smiling the last time she sees him.

At least, that’s what she tells herself as her mother pulls a blanket to her chin and wearily tells her to rest, using thumb and forefinger to wipe away the fresh flood of tears dewing both their lashes. She has to remember his relieved smile, the sparkle in his eyes as they both realized she was safe. If she thinks of his brown eyes wide open with shock, fear just beginning to smother the light in his expression, she’ll never rest peacefully again. “You need rest.” Mother tells Emma, eyes red-rimmed and miserable. Emma nods without looking her mother in the face, instead turning to burrow under the blankets like a cold kitten, concentrating on breathing around the lump that has swelled in her throat. The bed is enormous without the weight and heat of her brother, and though her mother tries to initiate contact through the heavy wool sheets she rolls onto her side and tries to ignore the sound of her mother sobbing quietly. When her father finally comes home, he joins the sounds with his muffled weeping. Her mother suddenly sucks in a ragged breath in the candlelit cottage, and manages to rasp out a single line before dissolving into tears again.  

“He… was my **son**. I _failed_ my _son_.”   The night returns to the sound of tears once more, but just before Emma starts hyperventilating under the itchy covers she hears her father soothing her mother, saying; “It wasn’t you. Please don’t blame yourself. The Lord just saw fit to take him…” The fire dies out then, finally, and through the wool Emma can hear her father sigh.

“I always knew he was special.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, this part is tiny. Sorry! It just didn't seem to mesh when mix with the next chapter, so I guess it's to be all alone.  
> ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ  
> Enjoy!


	2. Life Goes On

Over the next few weeks, she can feel something in her drying up and withering; there’s less reasons for her to smile, and although she used to fantasize about having the entire straw mattress to herself, she’d give anything to feel Jack’s elbow bury into her ribs at the dead of night. She eats less and cries more- the other children her age are frightened of her, now. They ignore her and her quiet, longing mannerisms- while she ignores them too- since none of them are her brother. In the summer, she sneaks out of the house and spends hours staring at the moon, thinking. Sometimes, she lies on her back in the grass and gets overwhelmed at the emptiness of her home and life, and it’s at those times she imagines the moon glows a bit brighter in the sky; a bit bigger, stronger, almost protective in the way it makes the shadows dissipate. Though, if she’s really honest, it’s likely from the tears kaleidoscoping her vision into tiny jagged bits of blur.

During the winter she wanders the forest like a ghost, thin worn leather shoes splitting from the cold and making her toes numb. She’s looking for him, she knows in the back of her mind, but she tells herself and everyone else she simply loves the silence of the woods, the apparent secrets it guards. Occasionally she hears clopping and what she thinks is the snort of horses, and wonders for the millionth time if she’s finally going mad. If she stumbles across the pond where it happened, (as it’s no longer just an event but the dividing line between Before and After) she can never resist calling out his name, squinting into the unforgiving body of water and wondering if he’s lonely, too.

One fall she approaches the pond while it is still freezing, and with shaky arms, she kneels at the edge with her knees smarting from the gritty soil and lumpy pebbles. She stays there awhile, eyes adjusting to the thick ripples of light playing across the surface, searching aimlessly until she sees movement. That’s strange, she thinks, leaning over and clutching a sapling for support. There are fish here…? But as far as she can think back, as far as she’ll let herself remember, this particular pond has been barren. The motion far below continues, and she cocks her head in confusion. Then she fully processes the movement: a repeated snapping ripple, like a rag on the clothesline or… a cloak. Her stomach twists, recoils and she jerks backwards, sobbing noisily and wiping her nose on her sleeve. If she didn’t know better, someone was watching her, but she can’t leave- not now. Instead she re-grips the young tree and forces her eyes back into the water, just in time to see the cloak diverge from it’s pattern and flip upwards. A pale hand appears, exposed for one millionth of a second- just enough to the trapping of underwater roots lacing the fingertips like a glove.

She barely manages to straighten up before she vomits onto the soil, tears and bile mingling on her chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does it hurt yet? Well, I've really enjoyed writing this so far! It's been loads of fun.


	3. Chapter 3

One night a few months later she lays under the stars, watching the clouds weave themselves new shapes in the winter breeze, when suddenly the dark sky parts like a curtain sliding apart and the Moon fills up her vision. It’s so close, and yet she’s afraid to touch it- it’s like a shimmering opaque bubble, and her influence would ruin everything in a second. So she watches. The moonbeams cut through the night like liquid silver before touching the chilled grass before her feet; they swirl amid the dew. She stares up at the moon looking for something in its path, blocking its light, but nothing’s there- the light ripples and curls into a shape. She’s locked into shock, too still to consider running away. She watches, transfixed, as the silver slips into a vague blobby shape, complete with tiny plants and trees growing at the edges.

Anxiety settles into her stomach, as she understands the shape: the pond. As if to compound her realization, an arrow twists free from the moonbeams and arches in the proper direction, commanding. She freezes even further, chest tightening- does she dare?

But her feet have already decided and she flies in that direction, mindless of the whipping tears the branches give her. She stops just short of entering the tiny clearing surrounding the water; instead she hangs back, partly obscured by the thick darker trees. The night is cold and at first she doesn’t understand. Maybe I am going insane, she wonders, mouth feeling like dried cotton. Why would the moon talk to me? She’s about to do… do something, anything, maybe walk closer to her brothers’ watery grave or turn and scramble home to bury under herself under the scratchy familiarity of the old blankets- when the ice on the pond creaks and bucks. She nearly screams when the surface shatters in slow-motion, a shape pressing at the zigzagging cracks from the inside. The frosty sheet over the pond parts to reveal a familiar form, a wet and waterlogged vest over a white, dripping shirt, bare feet dangling as the body is hoisted into the air. The night slows to a crawl as she stares, hypnotized, as the figure- Jack you mean, it’s obvious by his tattered pants and the fact that he’s wearing the cloak I’d sloppily made for his fifteenth birthday- twitches.

His chest heaves and a single sputtering breath passes his lips, but already the world is being swallowed up in a blurring blob of tears before she shakes her head and wipes at her eyes. Her heart throbs in her chest, exhilarated, terrified, and her frame shakes so hard she feels that at any moment she’ll split apart like the ice itself. The boy- Jack, she reminds herself, though she’s avoided the name for so long it’s like peeling off a bandage- shivers in the moonlight and slowly becomes alert, shoulders losing their slump and his breathing coming easier. Below him the ice slowly closes over the pond once more, and she watches in awe as he is gradually lowered to the ground, legs as wobbly and unsteady as newborn colt’s. His feet slide across the surface, and the familiar set of his shoulders is just as she remembers. He’s silent, staring his hands as if he’s never seen them before. When he discovers his old shepherd’s’ crook, pitted and tired from being abandoned, she’s grateful towards the fear the made her leave it. She watches as he approaches it, giving it a once over curiously. When he picks it up, he nearly jumps, and almost drops it; when the end strikes the pond a curious crackle fills the brisk air, though at her angle and distance, she can’t make out what’s going on- but she’s nothing if not intrigued. Slowly, trying not to let the squeak and crunch of snow betray her, she crawls closer to the pond, hunched position sending cramps through her back. 

With both hands now, her brother picks up the staff and gently knocks the tip against a tree.

   Even at a distance she can see the lattice of swirling ice patterns budding on the bark.


	4. Benefits and Losses

 A gasp dies in her chest as she watches him try it with another tree and then yet another, a graceful coat of ice tracing themselves onto the trees. Jack gives an excited whoop and breaks into a run, crook dragging behind him and creating flurries of snow in his wake. His white hair flashes silver in the night, and even at a distance she can see his exhilarated smile. More tears crowd her eyelids, but she wipes them away before they can obscure her vision. She’s convinced if she blinks or even looks away, the entire apparition of her brother will vanish. In the background, the crackling sound is continuous and it takes Emma a second to place the unusual noise: the sound of ice freezing over. Jack laughs again, and again, and the laughter is so refreshing and calming it’s like a rainstorm after a drought. The sound is almost breathtaking in its happiness, so pure and familiar that it settles in her chest until she’s laughing along with him, her skinny, cold shoulders shaking with giggles.

She’s louder then she realizes; the sound of her glee echoes off the trees and floats through the night air, startling both of the siblings in the snow. She clears her throat and scrambles backwards, searching for the safety of a tree to hide behind, but she’s wandered so close to the pond that she’s completely exposed in the clearing. Jack turns, posture stiff for the first time, towards her. A jumble of words explodes in her throat, a million things to say with a mouth that won’t co-operate. Her brother’s eyes widen in shock when he sees her, so wide-open that she can see his eyes are now a pale, almost glowing shade of azure blue. Her heart flutters and her fingers tremble; she starts forward, then stops, suddenly shy; a blush tugs at her cheeks and she wavers on the spot. He watches in silence, confusion and concern in his expression. She licks her lips, searching for words that don’t come, until something mangled by shock and amazement forces itself out.

“ _Jack_?”

That’s all? She wonders, frustration overriding her thoughts. I haven’t seen him in five years and all I can say is his name? She can feel her face crumple outwardly and she looks down at her feet in shame; hot tears trickle down her chin and land on her old shoes. She can hear herself crying, whimpers building in her chest. How childish of her, she thinks, and cries harder. A shadow falls over her. “Hey, hey.” Jack takes a few steps closer to her and rests a hand on her shoulder- after nearly half a decade, he’s still considerably taller then her, and with that thought a fresh wave of sobs takes her over.

“S-Sorry…” she blubbers, wiping at her cheeks with her rough cotton sleeve. “It’s fine, just… Don’t cry. It’s gonna be fine.” he mutters soothingly, and pulls her in for a hug. She is so shocked that the crying stops instantly; when he wraps his arm around her shoulders she breathes in the smell of freshwater and thin soggy wool. She presses her ear to his chest, searching for a heartbeat, but try as she might she can’t hear a thing. He moves to let go, but suddenly she’s petrified- if she lets go, he’ll disappear, and trying to get him back with be like catching smoke with her hands. Neither party says anything, and from overhead a light snow begins falling, while Emma finally manages to quell her sobbing. Suddenly, she pulls away, embarrassed again, and looks down. “Thank you…” she offers, trailing off when she realizes that her tongue is in knots again. “For the hug,” she feels moved to add, as if it needs explaining. “I needed that.” “No, no problem.” He responds. Gingerly, he pushes her chin up, a half-smile on his face as he studies her. The expression is something she’s seen on him before: light-hearted interest. 

“But I do have one question…?”

_Yes. Yes? What? Please say you’re coming back home Jack. Mom and Papa miss you terribly. We still have your extra vest at home, waiting for you. I only use half the mattress, even! I don’t care about the ice, our parents won’t either just… don’t go away again. **Please.**_

She stomps down her thoughts and peers back at him, waiting. Jack swallows and hesitates, choosing his words carefully. She pauses, torn between saying “yes!” before he asks to come back and waiting for him to actually speak.

_Jack jack jack_ _**PLEASE**_ I thought I was going crazy without you and now the other children won’t talk to me **_please please please god please_** -

“…Do I know you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧   
> All done! Hope it wasn't too terrible.


End file.
